Ben Pirkl, operator of the Santa Maria BMX track that’s tucked away at the Elks Events Center, did not grow up loving BMX. His interest in the sport began when his kids built a jump ramp outside of his house and started riding their bikes off of it.
“Took them out to the track and they never stopped,” he recalled fondly. And now? “I am the track operator. The third.”
Pirkl is the point man for Santa Maria BMX. His charge is a dirt course pocked with rollers, berms, and doubles where aficionados of bicycle motocross can practice and race against one another.
Bicycle racing is as old as bikes are, but BMX came about in the second part of the 20th century. The Internet generally attributes the origin of bicycle motocross to gutsy kids without motorcycles imitating the action they saw in movies such as On Any Given Sunday.
Bike manufacturers, smelling money to be made, looked at the wheelie bikes the kids were racing on for inspiration—child-sized and easily modified. The signature model was the Schwinn Stingray, which boasted swooping, ape hanger handlebars like a chopper motorcycle. The parts of a BMX bike are small and light; they’re designed to go fast and to handle jumps and mid-air manipulation.
In the late ’70s, recalled BMX veteran Gary Wells, Waller Park would draw “300 kids on a Sunday.” It was a heyday for the sport in Santa Maria. Riders would case the trails that weave in and out of the Orcutt Hills. Wells said the popularity of the sport crashed in the ’80s. Now, the track at the Elks Center only sees riders numbering in the hundreds at big annual events.
So eager were youth to buy and race and ride and hop about on these tiny little bikes that a new species of bike racing emerged, bringing up with it a logorrheic array of governing bodies with three-letter acronyms. George E. Esser, a promoter with the AMA (American Motocross Association), started the NBL (National Bike Leage) because the NBA (the National Bicycle Association—not the other one) didn’t regulate the growing sport out east. Both the NBL and the NBA were quickly supplanted by the ABA (American Bicycle Association), the first national organization regulating BMX. The IBF (International Bicycle Federation) was formed in 1981, raising BMX governance to the global stage. A decade later, in 1993, the IBF was incorporated into the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale).
Mercifully, the track that Pirkl operates is governed by the lone sanctioning body for BMX in the USA and Canada today. It’s called USA BMX, which is easy enough, and it sanctions some 400 tracks in various regional districts. The district that Santa Maria BMX falls under is one of the largest in the country—it covers four different tracks, stretching from northern San Luis Obispo County to the bottom of Ventura.
The Elks track is a longer track, in BMX terms, and it’s a nice one.
“It’s geared more for novice to intermediate riders,” explained Pirkl. “It’s not a very technical track. It’s friendly for newcomers. We’re a very nice facility with enormous viewing areas.”
There are proper restrooms—not porta-potties—and a full snack bar. There are picnic tables and parking spots aplenty. Rising bleachers enable spectators to look down at the track, instead of horizontally across it.
“We’re currently the No. 3 track in Southern California,” Pirkl said. “Some of our riders ride for national teams. Really good riders can get sponsorships from bike companies within BMX or other companies within the BMX industry to go out and compete for nationals.”
National-level races, like other extreme sports, offer two big ways for riders to support themselves: prizes for winning races and sponsorship by BMX brands. The track draws aficionados from all over. Go Sugiyama, an exchange student from Tokyo at Paso Robles High School, has been riding since he was 5 years old. He makes the two-hour round trip once a week to ride the Santa Maria track.
“No tricks,” he said. “I just go fast.”
Races begin with the pneumatic hiss punctuated by the clomp of the starting gate coming down. On Sundays, parents come out with children as young as 2 years old and will push them around the gentler stretches of track on strider bikes with no pedals. The 3-year-old graduates of strider bikes pedal around of their own accord. Pirkl said the track serves a “mass amount” of 4 and 5 year olds.
According to Pirkl, “it’s one of those things that every kid can do. It gives them a place, a nice safe environment, to come out and ride. Some of them are all different skill levels but it doesn’t matter, they’re all having fun.”
Doug Debruhl, a Santa Maria native who returned to BMX when his son became interested, likes the low-key family atmosphere of the track.
“It’s a good place to bring your kids,” he said. “It’s supervised; it’s organized. It’s like a family out here.”
His son Devin, riding a bike with a blue plate earned by placing third in the state, wore a huge grin. Racing, he said, is far and away his favorite part of BMX.
“You win, and it’s awesome,” Devin gushed. Minutes later, he was lining up with the pack for the first race of the evening, ready to ride fast in the last rays of afternoon light.
Contact Staff Writer Sean McNulty at smcnulty@santamariasun.com
This article appears in Apr 2-9, 2015.
